Scotch in Taipei

Project : The Edrington Group, Taipei Office
Location : Taipei
Function : Corporate Office
Area : 1,425 m²

The Edrington Group brings  the world’s best-loved Scotch Whiskies, including The Macallan, The Famous Grouse, Cutty Sark and Highland Park. They grew speedily beyond your imagination. After years in their old  office and enclosed cubicles, Edrington Taiwan decided to relocate to the President International Tower (PIT) located in Xinyin District. SL+A Taipei was honored to be selected as Edrington’s preferred partner to develop their 1,425 sq. meters office at the 9th Floor in PIT  facing Taipei 101 with plenty of daylight view.

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An innovative concept –  “The Journey through the Golden Water” welcoming visitors with a whisked and oaken reception incorporating a cozy waiting lounge with curvy ceilings and a most striking feature is a curve timber signage wall. The flooring of Interface’s new collection Net Effect Pacific series within the reception is a simple navy and earth tone carpet tiles, providing a lasting connection to nature and adding textural depth to the entire space.

From reception, there is an open view through to the Meeting Rooms leading to a luxury Bar Lounge, which can act as a overflow and entertaining space, as well as a buffer between the staff, visitors and Back of House functions to foster interactions.

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The Bar Lounge with a bottle pattern ceiling design have its own luscious forms and elegant lines shaped in flowing pattern that providing a special experience in the space. The design concept brings together both classic and contemporary, with an antique luxury toned furniture. Combination of high stool and soft seating setting interspersed with contemporary touches to create a variety of formal and informal settings and providing an instants comforts for all sorts of activities. It also further enhance the space with a note of aesthetic coherence.

It is always Steven Leach’s goal to balance the design’s sumptuousness and taking advantages of buildings’ fantastic views by bringing the space to life and creating a comfortable office environment. Steven Leach design team has ingeniously separated the working zone into 2 sections by establish an interesting symbolic vinyl film upon a full height clear glass panel as well as to comply with the local legislation. It provides a visual interest by subtly dividing the working space whilst providing a flowing rhythm to the open office.

Conversion of existing balcony to an ad hoc cum breakout area is absolutely an extra value! Despite the local code prohibits the use of balcony at PIT, most clients are troubled with balcony planning.

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However, Steven Leach turned the balcony into another informal collaborative space, creating a contrast which brings staff inspiration and relaxation by offering  them a wall-to-wall window view.
LEED certified is always a PLUS! Edrington Taiwan is a LEED Commercial Interior (CI) 2009 v3 Certified Office. We successfully bringing Edrington Taiwan not only an Efficient, Operational Working Place but also a Great place that creates healthiness, comfort and environmental awareness.
The Managing Director – Jennifer Wu, is happy and satisfied with the refreshed office. It was a great experience and collaboration working with Jennifer and team.
“Staff-concerned is always the key issue we need to think about” Jennifer quoted.

Design:
SL+A International Asia Inc.
David Pipkin

Services Provided:
Interior Design

Project Team:
Vivian Chang • Pei-Fen, Siew •  Joyce Chen • Beth Shen •  Rob Chen • Simon Sue • Jason Wang • Lizzie Gerock • Leo Wang • David Wu

Scouting in KL

Project    :     World Scout Bureau — Kuala Lumpur Office
Location    :     Kuala Lumpur
Function    :     Corporate Office
Area    :     540 m²

The World Organization of the Scout Movement (WOSM) is an independent, worldwide, non-profit and non-partisan organisation which serves the Scout Movement. To better serve its growing membership of 40 million Scouts worldwide, the World Scout Bureau — Kuala Lumpur Office was set up, making it the 8th World Scout Bureau (WSB) office in the world.

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With the growth of SL+A KL into a leader in corporate interior design, they were tasked with the design and creation of  the World Scout Bureau’s latest office.

It was SL+A’s intent to achieve a workplace that reflected the organisation’s sense of unity as a global scouting organisation”

In designing the World Scout Bureau — Kuala Lumpur Office, it was SL+A’s intent to achieve a workplace that reflected the organisation’s sense of unity as a global scouting organisation and that reflected the organisation’s proud heritage focusing particularly on their vision, “creating a better world”. As a result, throughout the design prominent brand identification is evident. This comes in the form of environmental graphics and strategic use of their corporate purple on workstation dividers, fabric upholstery and carpet. Complement these tasteful touches, further brand themes can be seen in the reception signage, the rope motif predominant on all sticker film and the image of the Scout Movement Founder, Baden-Powell creatively applied on the demisable walls in the training room.

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With the idea of openness and transparency guiding the design for the office, the end user experience begins with the reception desk, intentionally angled to provide better visibility from the entrance. This is further enhanced by locating all enclosed rooms towards the core of the building, maximising natural daylight shining through the main office area and onto desk surfaces encouraging sustainable principles.

The concept tracks closely with the effective utilisation of naturally available resources, a value promoted by the Scout Movement.

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The layout of workstations also facilitates easy staff connection, with low partitioned workstations allowing lines of sight right across each floor creating an open-plan workplace. This further promotes the organisation’s ethos of transparency, promoting connection and interaction between people. Expanding the theme of connection, the breakout area is purposely located in close proximity to the meeting and training rooms for group coffee breaks and lunches whilst adaptable training rooms can also be converted into one larger room to accommodate larger groups of people.

Throughout the office, an emphasis was placed on the use of white and light-toned wood which beautifully compliments the general colour scheme leaving a very warm and welcoming atmosphere. As a result, an environment is created maintaining a strong visual connection with the organisation’s corporate identity. Moreover, the contiguous space enables the WSB team to work together organically creating the relationships and connections the organisation represents. The environment is now a visual catalyst for WOSM’s values coming to life leaving no mistake regarding the organisation’s ethos.

Design:
SL+A Sendirian Berhad
Martin Axe

Services Provided:
Design + Build

Project Team:
Phillip Marchione • Aedil Ramsi • Dylan Tham • Nicky Wong • Eric Loke • Wong Kuan Yew

The AXE Factor

In this month’s newsletter, we are featuring Martin Axe, the man behind SL+A Sendirian Berhad, Kuala Lumpur.

martin-axe

Why architecture?

Well, really “Why Interior Design”? I like the tie scale of ID more than that of architecture, ad the sculptural aspects of objects. In this day and age its also the richer part of design as we get to play and work with texture, pattern, and colour much more than architects who seem overly crimped by availability and the industry offerings.

Main influences?

Lou Reed, Bowie, Roxy Music of course, but really all of the early 20th century modernists, and FL Wright, Mackintosh and Kahn. For furniture Saarinen, the Eames’ and Stark.

What do you like best about your office and the people in it?

Easy going, friendly, collaborative. We have a solid team of committed and distinctive staff who are determined in delivering the very best in design and project solutions to each and every one of our clients. The senior members take real ownership of the community and drive the firm towards success.

Most challenging part of your job?

The evolution of change. Over the past few years we have experienced rapid  lifestyle changes due to the advancement of technology, which in turn modernises the way we all work, simplifying work processes and methods and hence the corporate culture of our clients.

Because of this constant change, it has revolutionized the way we offer our design solutions to our clients. It is indeed gratifying to be involved as the agent of change in helping our clients to improve and strategize the way they work in the design of their physical environments. However, the challenge for us as an ID Consultant is in the management of the behavioural changes of our clients. Certain conventional clients need to be nurtured more than those gung-ho clients who are ready for the change but are unsure of how to manoeuvre towards the right direction.

What’s next?

Tomorrow.

What do you like to do outside of work?

Sail… completely erases everything else.